An industrial robot is usually programmed to operate within a certain operating range. In addition, for safety reasons, there is often prescribed that the operating range for certain of the axes of the robot is to be limited, from the point of view of hardware, by mechanical or electrical stop means. This brings about an emergency shutdown of the robot if, for example because of a fault in the control system, it would attempt to move outside the programmed operating range.
In hitherto known robots of the design described in the introduction, where a mechanical stop means is arranged between the rotatable stand and the fixed base, the stop arm and the stop dog are fixed into holes on the stand and the base, respectively, by means of bolts. Changing the operating range for such a robot is difficult and time-wasting, since this necessitates boring and threading an additional number of holes for attachment of the stop arm or the stop dog. Robots of this kind are described in European patent publication 0,241,556 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,954,188.